Édouard Mortier

Adolphe Édouard Casimir Joseph Mortier was born at Le Cateau-Cambrésis on 13 February 1768. Son of a farmer and deputy of the Third Estate, he enlisted in 1791. Divisional general in 1799, he fought under Masséna in Switzerland. In 1803, Napoleon entrusted him with the conquest of Hanover: mission accomplished without notable bloodshed. Marshal in 1804, Duke of Treviso in 1808. In Spain, he took part in the terrible siege of Saragossa — one of the bloodiest battles of the Napoleonic Wars — then defeated the Spaniards at Ocaña and Gebora. In 1812, he commanded the Young Guard in Russia. Governor of the Kremlin after the French entry into Moscow, he refused to execute the order to blow up the palace, arguing that retreat was the priority. At the Berezina, he covered the crossing with Ney and the Guard.

In 1814, Mortier defended Paris in the Plaine Saint-Denis. With Marmont, he tried to delay the Coalition advance. The city capitulated on 31 March. Mortier rallied to the Bourbons. During the Hundred Days, he joined Napoleon without hesitation. But a fit of gravel — stone disease — prevented him from commanding the Guard at Waterloo. He remained in the rear. This involuntary absence saved him from discredit: he retained his peerage under the Second Restoration.

Under Louis-Philippe, Mortier enjoyed a second career. Grand chancellor of the Legion of Honour in 1831, he became President of the Council in November 1834. His government was short-lived. On 28 July 1835, during the traditional review marking the anniversary of the Three Glorious Days, the king passed along the Boulevard du Temple. Fieschi's infernal machine — twenty-five loaded musket barrels aimed at the crowd — exploded. Mortier was killed instantly, alongside General La Tour-Maubourg and sixteen other victims. Louis-Philippe was spared. Mortier was sixty-seven. He was the last Marshal of the Empire to die in office — and the only one killed by a political assassination.

In 1803, as war resumed with England, Napoleon entrusted Mortier with the conquest of Hanover — the Electorate held by George III, King of Great Britain. Mortier conducted the operation with remarkable efficiency: within a few weeks, Hanover capitulated without a pitched battle. The campaign made him a reliable marshal, capable of executing a mission with precision. In 1808, he joined the army in Spain. At the siege of Saragossa — a city defended house by house, convent by convent — Mortier commanded one of the assault corps. The horror of street fighting, the epidemics, the fanatical resistance of the Aragonese marked the survivors. Mortier emerged from it tested but victorious.

In 1812, at Moscow, Napoleon entrusted him with the governorship of the Kremlin. When the order to blow up the imperial palace arrived — to deprive the Russians of a symbol — Mortier opposed it. He argued that bridges and depots were the priority; blowing up the Kremlin would delay the retreat. The Emperor eventually acquiesced. This refusal to obey blindly illustrates Mortier's sang-froid: he knew how to distinguish the useful order from the pointless destructive gesture. At the Berezina, alongside Ney, he covered the pontoneers' crossing. His constitution withstood privations better than many others — a robustness that would allow him to survive until 1835, until that July day when Fieschi set his infernal machine.